I was given this product for free. I was compensated for my time and for hosting the giveaway. However, paid for my time does not mean paid off. ALL opinions are my own and for sure I will always tell you what is on my mind. When I do accept a product it’s because I’m giddy to tell you about it. Read my full disclosure here. Now on to the fun stuff!

When my older two sons were in middle school we created a clip art heavy timeline with lots of coloring, cutting, and gluing. I’ve been looking for something which is not as craft intensive while still being challenging.

Until now, I couldn’t find an American history timeline curriculum which inspired me to want to do another one with my third son. Too, being an eclectic homeschooler, I want products which make it easy for me to teach in my style and in a way my son understands.

How to Rock History Using An American History Timeline

One of the things I find perfect about this two-volume bundle, besides not having to do time consuming coloring or crafts, is that each unit or timeline can stand alone.

We didn’t begin with The Giant History Timeline Book 1: Pre-Colonization-Reconstruction. We did spend the majority of time in The Giant History Timeline Book 2: 1870s-Presentbecause Tiny was interested in modern American history. I loved the fact that we didn’t have to start at the beginning and could skip right to the parts that we found fascinating.

For years we’ve covered significant early American history events through our history lapbooks.

So, feeling like he didn’t really have a clear outline of major modern historical events, Tiny wanted to delve deeper into modern history.

Another downside to doing clip art based timelines or date only timelines which I found out after doing my first one is that no real connection is made between dates and key historical events. And timelines can quickly becoming boring if they’re not studied along with the events or the people.

Intriguing events and colorful personalities of significant people of the past and present is what brings history alive. That is another win for The Giant American History Timeline bundle.

Let me backup first and give you an idea of all the goodies in the The Giant American History Timeline bundle so you can see how it can be used as a stand alone unit study or to enhance your study of geography, famous Americans, or history.

Unit 1: Industrial Growth and Technological Advancement 1870-1910Unit 3: America and the World 1867-1910Unit 5: The Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression 1920-1940Unit 7: The Cold War 1940-1990

Unit 2: Big Business and Social Reform 1870-1910Unit 4: World War I 1910-1920Unit 6: World War II 1930-1950Unit 8: The Civil Rights Movement Technology and Terrorism 1954-Present

Look at all the teaching perks in each book.

►Teaching notes which contain an overview of key events, suggested focus activities like when we listened to the inspiring I Have a Dream speech by Martin Luther King, Jr., instructions on how to create the timeline, points to teach critical thinking skills, and instructions on how to do the activity sheets.
►Six types of activity sheets which contain maps, primary sources, help for comparing and contrasting time periods, biography sheets, a voice from the past sheets and a fun time machine activity page.
► One of the parts I loved the best is the variety. In Book 1 there are 126 activity sheets and in Book 2 there are 125 activity sheets. That easily adds up to a huge amount of resources for kids of any age.

The hardest part for us was keeping to a few topics so that we could study it for any length of time.

We had so many choices of time periods, timelines, and topic ideas and couldn’t wait to start piecing the timeline together.

Since we moved into our new home, we haven’t really decided on a school area. It wouldn’t really matter anyway because Tiny has almost always taken to the floor to study something like this. He does best by using the floor to put his events in order and the The Giant American History Timeline gives excellent examples of how to connect the information and events to each other.It can be done by event, which is the one we loved, main ideas or sequence of events which is what we’re all familiar with.

Also, another facet of creating an easy diy timeline is storage.

You want your child to engage with the facts and the historical period he is learning, but you need a way for him to come back to them and study it.

However, since we don’t have a huge empty wall like a classroom, we are storing our timeline in a lapbook and doing one for each time period or unit we’re studying.

After researching and organizing the material he wanted to study, we reviewed key facts and then organized the material so that we could review in the future.Also, I shared with you how to turn a worksheet into an interactive minibook.

So, we applied that same folding technique to our mini-giant American history timeline.

One of the best things about using a lapbook besides great storage is that anytime he can take out the lapbook and memorize the significant events that match the dates.Then because this is a research intensive project, we added a pocket on the back of the lapbook to add the extra activity sheets that he did. This lapbook fits in well with the other American history lapbooks that we have done.

Did I mention that all pages are reproducible?

For some of the parts, we shrunk the pages when we printed. The other pages are just regular paper size but folded using my special technique that I mentioned earlier.

American History Timeline Activity Sheets

►You have multiple ages you’re teaching, but want one sanity-saving resource.
►Your kids don’t mind a few hands-on activities like labeling and coloring maps, but prefer straight research on topics.
►You want a reproducible resource instead of a workbook.
►You’re thinking about a lapbook or notebooking style of timeline because of a lack of space.
►Your kids prefer to learn more independently without having day to day lesson plans.
►You prefer an overview and guideline for topics and events to create.
►You want flexibility in how you cover topics by choosing ones that interest your children.
►You want to use timelines as a stand alone unit study topic covering multiple historical topics.
►Your kids prefer more worksheet and notebooking style pages.
►You want something faith-free or more secular so you can add your own worldview.
►You want teacher helps with answer keys.
►You want one comprehensive resource for teaching American history.
►You want your children to learn independently.

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Today, I have 20 ancient civilization history coloring pages that match up to my units here on my blog. They were free for a limited time, but I think you’ll still want them.

Ancient Civilization History

Sometimes the boys want to create their own covers for the lapbooks or notebooks from coloring pages.

I know with younger children, it can be hard to find history coloring pages based on everyday life. But these coloring pages work well with middle and high school too if your kid still loves to color. I made sure they have no baby-ish looking clip art.

I have always tried to use museum quality coloring pages when the coloring mood did strike with my boys.

We have used various museum quality history coloring books through the years that have made a big difference in how my boys understood history in the early years.

I think clip art should be as real as possible and based on real events in history. They are not always easy to find. I wish I could draw my own history clip art, but you don’t want me to draw for you. Just saying.

Learning History Through Coloring

Anyway, I collect the clip art as I find it.

Also, instead of me adding titles on pages or naming the pages, this allows you to use the clip art/coloring pages any way you want to. Whether it is a cover page, notebooking page, journal page or just to enrich a topic, you have the flexibility.

Here is what the 20 page download contains. I put a few key words to explain each picture on the page. This way you can use the coloring pages as title pages too.

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I debate constantly at this age whether I should include World War II historical fiction books to teach middle school or stick only with nonfiction. I end up mixing both types of genre.

On one hand I don’t want to gloss over the ugly side of war at the middle school age, but on the other hand there is still so much time left in a child’s life to get the real facts.

With Mr. Senior 2013, I tended to swing to brutal and real when choosing books and only used nonfiction references. But now, I realize that even at middle and high school level, a young adult is entitled to enjoy reading about history without having to read about all the cruel facts.

Besides, there is so much time as they are older to wrestle with all the issues.

Mixing both types of literature keeps learning about war topics balanced. Fiction can bring the time period alive while nonfiction reminds kids that this part of history is real.

WORLD WAR II HISTORICAL FICTION

Look at these 8 World War II historical fiction books I rounded up for middle school. I think you’ll love them.

Night Crossing This book is about a girl living in Austria having to leave her home when the Nazis come and brings to life the feelings of those that had to leave their home with just what they could carry.

The Shadow Children A summer visit to his grandfather’s farm turns into an adventures staged during World War II. The charcoal drawings are beautiful which makes this book good for an art study.

Journey to America. A family fleeing Nazi Germany is reunited after being separated and enduring different trials along the way with some adventure.

Behind the Bedroom Wall. This one we haven’t read it, but sounds so fascinating because it’s from a different perspective. A local teen girl is part of the Nazi party thinking it’s going to be good for her community but her parents are part of the underground movement to protect Jews. Sounds great and we can’t wait to read it.

Stepping on the Cracks. Margaret’s brother is overseas fighting, but learns about a deserter in her midst. It’s a good book to teach about pacifism because teaching complex war issues can be hard.

Under a War-Torn Sky. When a nineteen year old pilot’s plane is shot down,he finds himself behind enemy lines.

I hope you find one or two to use as a history spine or just as a way to bring this time period alive.

I think you’ll also love this free unit study and World War II history unit study.

What is the Manhattan Project minibook, Vocabulary Pocket, and Anne Frank Minibook

When we learn about events in history, sometimes we tend to look at them through our own eyes. This is completely understandable, since current events and our own way of looking at things is what we know.

Because of that, those events can get confusing. They don’t make sense.

There’s another way to go about it, though. Events in history aren’t just there for us to memorize; they happened to real people and had real consequences. Instead of digging into history through our own way of seeing things, we can try to understand it from the perspective of the people who lived it.

One of the best ways to do this is by keeping a journal!

When you make a historical journal, you get to take an adventure back in time. Instead of just memorizing dates and names for a test, you get to discover what it was like to live in another time and place.

Hands-On History: Make a Revolutionary War Journal

To get started, let’s cover a little bit of background.

The American Revolution

When we learn about the Revolution today, it is common to think of it as one side being “right” and one side being “wrong.” One side lost, and the other won.

Do you ever get the feeling that there’s more to the story, though?

To really grasp what happened and why, it is helpful to understand why people did what they did. Why did Britain feel it had the right to make so many laws and taxes? Was it being unfair? Why did the colonists rebel and declare independence? Did all colonists feel the same way?

During the time that the colonies were growing in America, people did not question being under the rule of a king or queen. At that time, it was considered normal and good – it was the way things were supposed to be, at least in their eyes.

The king or queen of Britain was one of the most powerful monarchs in the world for several hundred years, and many colonists were proud to be British subjects. The monarch had to work with Parliament (which is kind of like Congress), but he or she had a lot of power. Decisions made by the king or queen were not often questioned.

Changing Times

During the 1700s, the colonies in what would become America grew very rapidly. In 1700, there were approximately 250,000 people, and in 1776 when the Declaration of Independence was written, there were about 2,500,000. That is an increase of 1,000%!

Protecting all of these people, providing for them, and managing trade in a growing empire was very expensive. On top of this, many wars were fought in America and Europe during this time, which was even more expensive.

Eventually, the British king decided that the colonies should help pay for what was provided for them. In order to get this money, he declared taxes on many things that people used daily. Many of these taxes were on things that the colonists could only get from Britain, so they didn’t really have a choice but to pay the taxes.

Some people thought this was unfair, since British law said that taxes could not be imposed without approval from the people being taxed. Since no American colony had a representative in Parliament, this approval was not possible.

Keeping Your Historical Journal

For this activity, you are going to “become” a character during the time of the American Revolution. Instead of just learning about battles and places, you’re going to learn about it by “living” it!

You get to choose or make up a character from the Revolutionary War period. This can be anyone – perhaps a child your age, a colonial or British soldier, a Son of Liberty, or a journalist covering the events. Will you be a patriot (someone who thought that America should be its own country) or a Tory (someone who was loyal to the British crown?

Where do you live? Do you live up north or in the south? Are you a farmer or do you work in the city? How old are you, and who is in your family? As you figure out your character, make some notes. This will help you in writing your journal!

When you make journal entries, you will want to date them for the time period you are writing about. For example, you might date your first entry as July 4, 1776 (rather than the current date). Write as if you are the person that you made up. What is happening around you? How do you think people are reacting? How do you feel about the events – are you excited, scared, confused, or happy?

Hands-On Activity: Make a Historical Journal!

For this project, you will need the following supplies:

Two pieces of cardboard, approximately 9” x 6”

5-10 pieces of cardstock, white or cream is best

Twine or fine hemp rope (from a craft store), about 2 feet long

Hole punch

To start, fold each of the pieces of cardstock in half the short way. These will be your pages.

Punch six holes approximately the same distance apart along one long side of a piece of cardboard. Using this as a guide, place each of the folded pieces of cardstock, one by one, under the cardboard piece and make a small pencil mark in each of the holes.

These are your guides; they will show you where to punch the rest of the holes to make sure the pages line up correctly. Do the same with the other piece of cardboard. Punch holes in all of the pages and the cardboard.

You should now have two cardboard covers and several folded pages. Put them together to form a book. Rather than nesting the cardstock pages inside each other, line them up one on top of the other; this will make everything align properly.

Taking a piece of twine or hemp rope, thread it through the bottom hole of the stack and pull it about half way. (You’re going to use the other half in a moment.)

Looping the rope around the back, thread it through the next hole. Do this until you reach the top. Be sure not to pull it too tight – you need it to be a little loose so you can open and close the journal!

When you’re done with one side, start with the other end of the rope. Thread it through each of the holes the opposite way, so that the spine looks like a series of “x’s.” When you get to the top, make sure that the binding is loose enough for you to open and close the journal easily.

Then, tie a knot at the top. Leave the ends long – these can be tied around the cover of the journal to keep it closed!
Now, you are ready to tell your story!

Have fun with this project! The great thing about it is that it is adaptable to any time in history. If you’re not studying the American Revolution this year, you can easily use it to learn about any other event!

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When I was taken paralegal courses after high school, I had an assignment to read Wills and Deeds from the 1800s at the local courthouse.

Loosing track of time was easy as I was absorbed in reading not only legal language but reading the household property that was bequeathed to family members. It was like stepping back in time as I read about the lives of past Americans.

Engaging US History

It was fascinating and stirred a love of not only the history of law but of American history.

Remembering that time in my life, I was determined to supplement U.S. history for high school in a creative way.

I’ve rounded up 7 unique ways to supplement U.S. history for high school because engaging ways to learn history for high school can easily be overlooked.

One/ Read old documents.

Planning a trip to the courthouse to have your teen read old documents which are public record is a fun field trip for a teen.

Six/ Field trips. And not to the Zoo.

Let’s just face it. Field trips at the high school level may seem harder to find. They are, but there are also many opportunities to extend a teen’s learning past a textbook on a field trip.

It may take a bit more creative wit, but the opportunities are there. Unless your teen is planning to be a zookeeper (which is great too) he probably has been to the zoo many times.

Look at these ideas for field trips for a teen that bring history alive:

Plan to attend a trial in the local courthouse or a court docket call. Check with the bailiff because he is the person that deals with the public. He may recommend an upcoming trial that would be permissible for your teen to sit in. We did this one time and my boys never forgot it.

I planned a trip to the federal money reserve for our teens to learn about the federal government and how money is made.

Our local ferry was a great way to learn about the history of the port and about early life on the coast.

Living near a major college, we watched showtimes for plays about history and got invited one time by local students.

SEVEN/ Supplement American history through reading about the life of an American.

I am a huge bookworm. HUGE. If I was left alone on a desert island with a choice between food or books, I’d have to make myself choose the food. That’s just how much I love to read.

As we started studying the Middle Ages, we learned a lot about the beginning of the publishing industry, to which what we owe our modern-day books. It turns out that present-day paper books began with the invention of the codex, the first truly portable written document.

After finding out how codices were made in the Middle Ages, we decided to make one of our own!

Middle Ages History: Make a Codex Activity

The codex was actually invented during the Roman Empire, centuries before the Middle Ages began. Prior to its creation, most important documents, such as literature, speeches, and journals, were kept on scrolls or pieces of parchment.

Since these methods were so bulky, something more convenient was needed, especially for documents that needed to be transported across long distances. Some historians say that Julius Caesar was the first person to develop the idea of a notebook of folded and bound pages, but there is some uncertainty about this.

Either way, the codex (folding pages into small packets and then sewing them into a bound book) quickly became the standard for publishing and distributing literature. In fact, if you look behind the spine of a thick book, you’ll see the individual packets of paper sewn together that make up the book. This is basically a codex in itself.

To make our codex, we decided to focus on a codex from the Middle Ages: The Peterborough Chronicle. This document, which dates back to the 12th century, chronicles the establishment of the British Empire.

To make your own codex, you’ll need the following supplies:

Pieces of blank unlined paper

Yarn needle

Seam ripper (or X-Acto knife) *Be sure to use adult supervision when working with sharp objects.*

Bulky yarn

Ruler

Pencil

Chisel-point marker

Begin by folding the pages in half. You’ll want to make several packets of three to four pages. For our codex, we folded six packets of three pages each.

We used a seam ripper to begin punching holes in the first packet. After a few holes, though, we swapped it out for an X-Acto knife, which worked better. If you have an awl, that would probably work even better.

We lined up the packets to draw the holes and then punched them in the same spots to make sure the holes would line up for sewing the codex together. Interestingly, when publishers created codices, they also had to make the paper sewing holes by hand. This process was called “pricking”.

Now it’s time to sew the codex together. Thread the yarn through the eye of the yarn needle and insert the needle into the first sewing hole through all the codex packets.

Hands-on Middle Ages History

After pulling the needle all the way through, bring the yarn back around and thread the needle through again to secure the first stitch. Then move down to the next pricked hole in the codex.

Stitch in this same manner all the way down the side of the codex.

When you get to the end, pull the yarn back through the last stitch vertically.

Cut the thread to bind off the sewing. Do the same at the top.

You’re ready to add writing to your codex now! In the Middle Ages, it was common to line the pages of a codex with ink to make it easier for scribes to write neatly. Just like ruled notebook paper we have today!

Use a ruler and a pencil to draw writing lines on your codex pages. Be sure to leave space for the first letter of the work to be about three lines in length.

Like so. The first page of the Peterborough Chronicle is written in Old English, which looks very different than modern English. Thankfully, the content has been translated. That was the source material for our codex.

Use a chisel-tip marker to write in your codex and you’re done!

This would be a great extended activity for history! Let the kids find a historical codex and write a paragraph or two from it each day! You could even include pieces from several codices and let the kids discover the kinds of content that would have been considered valuable enough to publish in this manner centuries ago.

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Below, I have 23 free unit studies which cover ancient civilizations to modern history. Depending on your objectives, the unit studies can be used to supplement homeschool history or they can be used as stand alone.

Content subjects are not really grade level. If you need an explanation, click here to read Skill Subjects vs. Content Subjects: What’s the Difference. If you waited to study the American Civil War until 7th grade, then introductory information is just that. It doesn’t really matter if you cover that topic in 4th grade or 7th grade. However, do adjust books and writing for each level, but even that is doable when you have a framework of where to begin.

Also below, I’ve included tips for teaching hands-on history because it’s such a valuable part of bring history from boring to bam. Teaching history doesn’t have to always include some over the top hands-on activity, so a lot of the ones are easy to do.

Exploring to Revolution – American Civil War HUGE lapbook and homeschool unit study.

World Wars to Today – FBI lapbook and homeschool unit study.

Go here to see how to place the minibooks in the completed lapbook.

Hands-on History Ancient Greece

Hands-on History Ancient Rome

4 Shortcuts to Teach Hands-On American History

Make Celtic cakes

How to Make an Easy Peazy Roman Costume

If you are looking for a more formal, but flexible framework in which to cover history, then my favorite curriculum for covering history in broad strokes is Brimwood Press. It’s very unusual because it covers history in 14 lessons. It’s great for a variety of learners :

diy homeschoolers who may want to cover history in broad strokes,

homeschoolers who want a framework, but want to fill in with details which interests them,

and homeschoolers who hate history because the focus was on dates instead of the action-packed lives of history makers.

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Fools, buffoons, jesters or court jesters were entertainers especially well-known during the Medieval period, but what we didn’t know was that they had their beginning in several ancient civilizations. One ancient civilization where they got their start was Ancient Rome. We have been loving our art lessons using Atelier Art video based lessonsand learning about the jester fit into our ancient civilization hands-on series.

Easy Hands-on Homeschool History

Our hands-on lesson today started with understanding how the word buffoon developed. We use the word somewhat differently today. The book, The Unexpected Evolution of Language:Discover the Surprising Etymology of Everyday Words states that buffoon derives from a word that means to “puff out the cheeks.”

The word “Buffo” was used in the Roman theatre by those who appeared on the stage with their cheeks blown up. When they received a blow, they would make a great noise causing the audience to laugh.

It was fascinating to learn that Ancient Greeks, Ancient Egypt and Ancient Rome all had various forms of entertainers or the modern day clown. Too, entertainers of earlier times went well beyond just costumes and masks. There were storytellers, joketellers, jugglers and acrobats.

True, some of the forerunners of modern day clowns and jesters are grim looking. I don’t know how some things in history can from grin to grim. But history has a way of twisting the beginning of things.

Jesters sometimes reminds me of the nightmares of my childhood. But once we started reading how faces painted early on were because of poor stage lighting, it made more sense to us.

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